Although private education is no longer a subsidiary mode of learning, it has been an area of little interest to English Language Teaching (ELT) researchers. This study touches on the English language teaching in private language institutes (PLIs) in Yemen with a particular reference to teachers' experiences, challenges, and needs. Forty-five classroom observational forms and subsequent interviews with fifteen teachers in three major PLIs were used to find information about teachers' classes in terms of presentation, teacher-student interaction, and teaching materials. Over six months, teachers' practices in the classroom and beliefs about their teaching situations were detected and analysed. The classroom observations, tied with the qualitative data came from the interviews, and related the teachers' challenges. Findings showed that teachers are in need of training on how to plan their teaching more accurately, integrate technology into their classes properly, and manage their teaching time. In tandem with workshops and refresher courses on the purpose, the training should include ethics of the profession, recent trends and practices, learner autonomy, and innovative teaching-- elements deemed necessary for language teachers in the twenty-first century.